


For you, I would

by ElenyasBlood



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 魔道祖师 | Módào Zǔshī (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Witcher, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fantasy, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monsters, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenyasBlood/pseuds/ElenyasBlood
Summary: As a Witcher, Jiang Cheng's job is to hunt and kill the monsters that lurk in the dark—as a bard, Jingyi likes to think it'shisjob to travel alongside Jiang Cheng in an attempt to spread the word of his triumphs.That is until one night he finds himself confront by a terrifying choice with an outcome that might change his life forever.
Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Lán Jǐngyí
Comments: 21
Kudos: 43
Collections: Chengyi Harvest Festival 2020





	For you, I would

**Author's Note:**

> written for the **Chengyi Harvest Festival 2020** as a prompt fill for day 4: bonfires, camping and spiced tea. i decided to cover all at once, sue me. 
> 
> this is a Witcher AU, however you don't have to be familiar with the universe in order to enjoy the budding relationship between these fools. *w*
> 
>  **glossary:**  
>  _Yrden_ \- simple magical sign, when inscribed on solid surface, it blocks monsters from getting closer
> 
>  _Aard_ \- simple magical sign, comprised of a telekinetic thrust that can stun, repel, knock down
> 
>  _Swallow_ \- a potion that accelerates the regeneration of a Witcher's vitality

Jingyi looks across the fire to find two distinctly golden eyes staring back at him through the haze of blistering flames. 

“See anything you like, Witcher?” he asks without thinking, mouth working on its own accord as he keeps plucking the strings of his lute. 

Jiang Cheng grunts dismissively in response before shuffling onto his side to settle facing away from Jingyi. He has been more taciturn than usual throughout the day, and Jingyi feels uneasy with it. The target of their current hunt—a Katakan that had been terrorizing the nearby villages—is hiding somewhere in the woods beyond the treeline, and their trek up into the mountains of the Northern Kingdoms has been long and arduous. For the past two days Jingyi has watched the landscape shift from the lush green and golds of the hinterlands to the precipitous world of coarse stone and the muted colors of an early fall. 

From where he sits, Jingyi can still make out the Witcher’s features in the flickering glow of the flames. His profile is dominated by sharp lines and harsh angles, and tension runs deep in the lines around his jaw. Strands of wayward white hair fall against his leather jerkin, and Jingyi feels his fingertips prick with the urge to reach out and run his hands through them. Two swords—one made from the finest silver and with an elegantly trimmed handle, and another one, dark in appearance and with runes etched along the shimmering blade—rest next to Jiang Cheng’s perch, mere inches away from where his hands are folded in his lap. 

Sighing, Jingyi attempts to wiggle himself into a more comfortable position before picking up his lute again. For a while he busies himself with his most recent composition—an epic tale of monsters and maidens—and when he finally finds the right tune, he starts humming along the grandiose melody. 

“Can’t this wait?” Jiang Cheng asks eventually, voice gruff. He doesn’t have to open his eyes for Jingyi to know what swims in those golden irides. Annoyance, exasperation, and somewhere underneath, the strained expression of a Witcher that never quite knows how to let go and unwind. 

Jingyi doesn’t falter in his play. “What are you worried about?” he asks, shooting a wink across the campfire’s crackling flame towards the groaning Witcher. “Worried the beast might surprise you in your beauty sleep?” 

Jingyi grins to himself as he watches Jiang Cheng swallow dryly, his studded leather jerkin clinking quietly when he turns to throw a hard look towards the bard. “Yes,” he replies after a brief pause. 

“What about your magical necklace? Isn’t it supposed to warn you whenever there’s some unnatural spawn around?” Jingyi says bluntly, interrupting his play to sit up a little straighter against the saddle bags he is using as a backrest. 

“Useless against Katakans,” Jiang Cheng bites out. “Vampires don’t play by the rules. They’re undetectable.” 

Jingyi feels his stomach plummet at the revelation, and setting his lute aside, he looks around. The camp they have set up on the clearing is much like any other during their travels, with the horses grazing idly nearby, and fire crackling warmly between them. Travel gear lies strewn across the patch of moss to Jingyi’s right—a blackened pot, a pair of gloves, a small flask full of oil, and a waterskin leaking into the woven fabric of his hooded cloak—and on all accounts there seems nothing out of order to Jingyi. 

Except when next he spares a glance across the flames, Jiang Cheng’s fingers have inched ever closer towards the nearby sword hilt, and tension turns the lines of his body into tight, angular shapes. The bulk of his chest rises steadily with his breath, but Jingyi knows that the muscles below the heavy armor are coiled tightly, ready to spring. 

“And you were planning on telling me that when, exactly?” Jingyi inquires incredulously after a thorough inspection of his immediate surroundings. 

Jiang Cheng shrugs lightly. “I just did,” he says, and turns fully towards the treeline and away from Jingyi’s disapproving gaze. 

Shadows loom beyond the reach of the fire’s glow, and fumbling for his own weapon Jingyi shifts into a more upright position. He finds the dagger dangling off his belt where it belongs, cold and heavy and reassuring, and the sensation manages to quell the hectic terror fluttering in Jinygi’s stomach. He musters the lute sitting in the dust to his right, and deciding that he’s done enough composing for the night, he shoves it quietly back into its pouch before reaching for his traveller’s cloak. 

The rough-spun wool is coarse under his touch, and it takes Jingyi three failed attempts to yank the heavy fabric over his shoulders before he settles. Beyond the light of the fire, the trees stand still and mute in the darkness like soldiers. With the absence of music, the sounds of the night creep in, and Jingyi tilts his head as though the gesture might enhance his mere human ability to listen. 

Wind is howling down from the mountain’s craggy slopes, carrying the smell of snow and wilderness into the shallow foothills. A wolf pack howls in the far distance, their voices doleful and manyfold, eerie enough to send a thrill of adrenaline through Jingyi’s blood. Cinders crackle loudly when a log collapses into the blaze, and Jingyi watches a cluster of embers rise towards the pitch-black sky like fireflies. 

It is Jiang Cheng who eventually gets up to check on the horses, his footsteps falling heavy on the soil next to Jingyi as he trudges by. The breeze carries a whiff of metal and leather, sweat and upturned earth towards Jingyi, and chasing Jiang Cheng’s familiar scent, Jingyi nestles deeper into the warmth of his cloak. Exhausted from their trek—and spooked by the terrifying prospect of an undetectable, blood-sucking monster nearby—Jingyi feels too raw, too exposed to even sing to himself and yet sleep comes quickly. Jingyi dozes off with his face pressed into the hooded cloak, and with one hand firmly wrapped around the dagger’s reassuring weight, he succumbs to sleep’s hazy clutches. 

* * *

The piercing whinny of a horse tears through Jingyi’s dreams like a blade through flesh, and gasping, he comes to. Adrenaline catapults him out of his cloak and onto his feet, his dagger flying out of its leather sheath and into his dominant hand. There is some shuffling to his right, followed by the sound of branches snapping under heavy footfalls, and in the fuzzy glow of the dying fire Jingyi spots the Katakan in the distance. 

It is huge, a mountain of matted fur and hulking muscle, its garish features obscured by deep lines around its bat-like nose. Twisted horns sit atop a head as thick as an ox’s, and the flames’ orange flicker gleams off hooked claws. Momentum drives the beast forward, its tattered, rudimentary wings flapping uselessly as it stumbles forward and into the light, charging directly at Jingyi who can’t seem to move away. 

With leaden feet, Jingyi stands and stares at the monstrosity as if in trance, until he can feel the ground beneath him shake with its hulking advance. 

“Move!” A voice cracks through the night like a whip, and Jingyi has not enough time to process the word when he can already feel the whirring pressure of _Yrden_ pass him by before crashing into the soil in front of the vampiric abomination. The Witcher sign’s magic is instant, slowing the Katakan’s advance considerably and long enough for Jiang Cheng to appear next to Jingyi. 

“I said _move_!” he barks as he passes by Jingyi, silver sword gleaming in the campfire’s dying light, and eyes wild with determination. His gloved hand is heavy as it lands on Jingyi’s shoulder and Jingyi gasps when he is shoved out of the way and into the safety of Jiang Cheng’s flank. “Get out of here!”

And Jingyi really wants to leave, turn away and run as far as his legs can carry him, towards where he can’t smell the foul stink of the Katakan’s gaping maw. But as he watches Jiang Cheng hurl himself towards the beast without a moment’s hesitation he can feel his legs shake with the mere effort of keeping him upright. 

“I can’t!” he yells over the scraping of metal against gnarly horns, and watches in horror when the beast’s jaw snaps mere inches away from Jiang Cheng’s face. Its unnaturally long arms scramble against Jiang Cheng’s jerkin, catching in the studded leather as it tries to pry Jiang Cheng off its rapidly heaving flank. But Jiang Cheng is cunning and strong—altered by mutation and stronger than any human could ever be—and he’s already found a weak spot in the Katakan’s rash defense. With his sword held at an angle he rears back and the beast has barely enough time to process the events before Jiang Cheng’s drives the blade through its shoulder. 

Jingyi wishes he didn’t recognize the sound of severed tendons and lacerated skin, but after months on the road with a Witcher, he does. The beast lets out a ghastly howl, tearing itself loose to wrench just out of Jiang Cheng’s reach, closer towards the fire where Jingyi can see blood sloshing onto the trampled ground. 

The Katakan’s pained expression lasts for just a moment, and Jingyi gets only a brief glimpse of the way Jiang Cheng is towering between him and the monstrosity before the Witcher launches forward again, this time aiming for the Katakan’s crippled wings. He hacks into the leathery skin with abandon, his body a flurry of gleaming silver and black leather in the half-dark. Hair as fair as moonlight flickers like a flame, and Jingyi is transfixed, entirely devoted to the performance of raw strength and deadly precision—the Witcher’s trade. 

He’s briefly distracted by Roach’s panicked braying somewhere distant, and the way faint morning light is starting to bloom on the horizon. It’s enough for Jingyi to see the hooked claw that comes up to slash at Jiang Cheng’s flank, once, twice, until it finds purchase and a nasty gash appears in Jiang Cheng’s jerkin. 

“Fuck,” Jiang Cheng curses and scrambles for sure footing in the aftermath of the terrible blow. He has enough restraint to not clutch his side, instead positioning himself just off the side of the vampiric abomination, sword raised and teeth bared. His expression is unreadable to Jingyi, his features obscured by the fuzzy half-light and the way his hair is falling into his face in cascades. He grunts when he manages to block the Katakan’s next swipe with the flat side of his sword, and uses the leverage to push the beast back, towards the sweltering embers. 

A roar shakes the clearing when the knotted curls around the beast’s misshapen feet catch on fire, and with its focus briefly drawn to the searing pain around its grotesque ankles Jiang Cheng takes a moment to collect his composure. Jingyi can see wetness spilling from the gash in the leather jerkin and feels ill with the thought of it, fingers itching to press against the bleeding wound and staunch the flow. He tries to swallow the panic, tears his gaze away from Jiang Cheng’s heaving chest just to catch the Katakan’s unsteady gaze as it flickers towards Jingyi for a split second. 

There’s something ancient and frenzied lurking in the depths of the monster’s eyes, hidden below the heavy brow and framed by ashen skin, and Jingyi has barely a moment left to yell “Watch out!” before the beast lurches toward a momentarily distracted Jiang Cheng. 

In the few seconds before Jingyi decides that he can’t let Jiang Cheng die tonight, not like this and not now, the sound of blood thundering in his ears is drowned out by utter clarity. He knows that Jiang Cheng is not ready for the next attack as sure as he knows his own heart—knows who it beats for, has been beating for since the first time he laid eyes on the quiet, unapproachable Witcher—knows that the beast won’t hesitate to drive its filthy claws through the soft hollow below Jiang Cheng’s throat if given the chance. He knows he’s not a brave man, too, and yet when he launches himself forward and against the Katakan’s distorted, malformed shape what surprises him most is the complete absence of fear. 

He’s distantly aware of how laughably insignificant his sacrifice might be if he doesn’t succeed in his endeavour, and the last thing he hears is Jiang Cheng’s panicked voice calling out for him before he crashes into the deformed mass of the Katakan’s body.

The thing is all jagged bones and spasming muscle, and Jingyi aches with the harsh impact. Jiang Cheng’s voice is drowned out by the ringing in Jingyi’s ears, and thoroughly winded by the collision, Jingyi gasps as his shoulder knocks painfully against the beast’s flank. 

“Gods, no,” Jingyi wheezes, feeling his knees buckle as his feet slam into the ground hard. He has to will his eyes open, and whips around in time to see a set of spindly fingers aimed to swipe at him. Firelight glints off barbed claws, and Jingyi has two seconds to regret every step that has brought him to this moment before the Katakan tears into him. Only the regret doesn’t come, and neither does the visceral pain of being severed in half by a vampiric monstrosity. 

Instead the world shifts in front of Jingyi when the Katakan’s heavy body gets yanked away, towards where Jiang Cheng has dug his heels into the soil, sword raised and his gaze murderous. 

“It’s me you want,” he shouts over the beast’s raspy breath. “Come and get me!” 

The bat-like monstrosity snarls at the sound of Jiang Cheng’s voice. Its jaws click open, and underneath its heavy footfalls Jingyi can make out a single word, spat out in a gravelly voice dripping with disdain: “Witcher.” 

Jiang Cheng doesn’t wait for the beast to come to him. Instead he charges forward, eyes never leaving his adversary and hands wielding the deadly silver weapon. He launches a series of attacks at the Katakan, metal scraping against leathery skin, hacking away and landing blow after blow before he uses _Aard_ to catch the fiend off balance. The sound of the Katakan’s claws jabbing uselessly against metal is followed by the sight of Jiang Cheng thrusting his weapon through the bony ridges of the beast’s chest plate until only the hilt sticks out.

Jingyi watches wide-eyed as the Katakan loses its footing and sinks into the soil, gurgling wetly. There is something hauntingly human about the way the bizarre being clutches its chest to keep the blood from welling through its claws. Its body convulses as it falls forward, the tattered wings twitching uselessly as the life drains from it, and deafening silence falls over the clearing. 

Jiang Cheng lowers his weapon and steps back once the Katakan’s corpse stops twitching in the soil before he turns around. His eyes are wild as they fall onto Jingyi, glowering, and anger twists his mouth into a hard, tight line until not even the messy spill of his disheveled hair manages to soften his expression. He rams the tip of his sword into the upheaved earth with such force it shakes the very ground Jingyi stands on, and then Jiang Cheng stomps toward him, sure and broad and livid and and the bottom of Jingyi’s stomach drops out. 

“What the fuck was that?” Jiang Cheng shouts as he comes to a halt right in front of the bard. “Why didn’t you run like I told you to?”

Jingyi tamps down on the nervousness inside the pit of his stomach and clears his throat. “Because you needed my help,” he says and gathers courage from the way his voice wavers only a little bit. 

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Jiang Cheng barks, and Jingyi notices the way his hands curl into hard, sharp fists against the black leather of his jerkin. “I’m a Witcher, and Witchers work alone.”

“Oh yeah?” Jingyi snaps back and adjusts his stance until he’s right in Jiang Cheng’s face. “Because if I remember correctly I just saved your pretty ass right there, _Witcher._ ” 

Jiang Cheng’s eyes appear brighter in the campfire’s half-light, less human in their eerie golden glow. “I had the Katakan right where I wanted it before you went and did something so stupid and reckless! As if—” Jiang Cheng swallows hard, and Jingyi can see his jaw tighten painfully.

“As if I’m not the useless bystander for once?” Jingyi finishes the sentence when Jiang Cheng doesn’t. He is angry now, too, adrenaline still kicking through his body when he shoves an accusatory finger against Jiang Cheng’s heaving chest. “Is it so hard for you to just thank me for saving your sorry ass and move on? If you’re worried about having to share your fame—” 

A growl rumbles in Jiang Cheng’s throat. “I don’t give a fuck about fame, Jingyi. You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” 

“So could you,” Jingyi deflects, heart flying into his throat at the mere thought. He can feel Jiang Cheng’s breath against his face—warm and tickling and _alive_ —and has to remind himself to remain angry. 

“I’m a Witcher,” Jiang Cheng barks. “My body can heal itself. Getting in harm's way is part of who I am.” 

“So?” Jingyi spits, the tip of his finger now digging into the stiff leather across Jiang Cheng’s chest. “Just because you won’t die from a wound like that—” he pointedly gestures towards the gash across the Witcher’s flank—“doesn’t mean you can’t feel pain. Don’t think for a second I’m not aware of what this life has done to you, Wanyin; I’ve seen your scars.” 

“You’re missing the point,” Jiang Cheng snarls, breath falling from his lips in shallow huffs. “It’s not about pain, it's about survival. I can get away with a moment of thoughtless recklessness but you, Jingyi—you could’ve died tonight and there would’ve nothing I could’ve done to stop it from happening, you idiotic little lark.” 

Jingyi’s mouth falls open in silence and he’s still fumbling for an answer when Jiang Cheng bends down to close the distance between them. “You could’ve _died_ tonight,” he repeats in a voice so raw and broken, and Jingyi has barely a moment to process the way Jiang Cheng’s hand rises to his cheek before the Witcher crushes their mouths together. 

Jiang Cheng tastes of salt and warm skin, his lips rough when he drags them across Jingyi’s—clumsy and panicked. The touch is too harsh, too chaotic, and Jingyi’s mouth stings with the hasty shove of it, lips bruising under the frenzied, messy draw of Jiang Cheng’s desperate ministrations. 

“Wanyin,” he murmurs when Jiang Cheng pulls back an inch to catch his breath. “How long—”

There isn’t enough time to finish the question before the words are swallowed by Jiang Cheng’s hungry mouth, the way he curls his tongue behind Jingyi’s teeth with wanton recklessness. Heat furls through Jingyi at the sensation of Jiang Cheng’s thumb finding the shallow dip below his throat, pushing gently, until the rough pads of Jiang Cheng’s fingers catch against Jingyi’s delicate skin—and Jingyi whimpers. His heart hurts from pounding and he kisses back with all the silent devotion he has kept buried inside his chest since the day they met.

A string of saliva pulls between their lips when Jiang Cheng draws back again, eyes wild and furious, still. “Fuck,” he mutters into the stifled air between them, but doesn’t stop Jingyi when picks up his other arm by the wrist to set it onto the narrow line of his hip. 

They stand in silence for a moment, their breathing slowing as it falls in hot puffs against the skin of their faces. Morning is dawning across the horizon and Jingyi is dimly aware that there is something he should do. But with Jiang Cheng holding him so tenderly and his hand still resting against his throat, warm and heavy, Jingyi can only blink owlishly into the fuzzy light, his body swaying forward until he feels the lean expanse of Jiang Cheng’s stomach brush against his own. 

When Jingyi eventually turns his head, his eyes fall onto the Katakan’s bleeding corpse, still lying motionless in the soil where the Witcher felled it, and with a start his brain remembers. He pulls back with a gasp, urgency driving his words. “You’re wounded,” he exclaims as his hand falls to the patch of shredded leather across Jiang Cheng’s side. 

“Hardly,” Jiang Cheng replies, but when Jingyi drags him into the fire’s dying glow Jiang Cheng lets him. He sits and watches as Jingyi shoves a log into the embers, and doesn’t protest when Jingyi gathers his waterskin from where it lies discarded by the campsite and an almost clean cloth from the saddlebag before kneeling next to Jiang Cheng in the dirt. 

Jingyi swallows as he peels the leather away just enough to catch a brief glimpse of the deep marks the Katakan’s claw has left behind. “Looks nasty,” he comments, and when Jiang Cheng remains stoically silent, he risks another look. 

The skin across Jiang Cheng’s flank is torn where the Katakan has gouged through the jerkin, and chunks of raw, pink flesh are visible to the naked eye. Blood pools between the ridges and valleys of Jiang Cheng’s ribcage, and he hisses tenderly when Jingyi brushes a probing finger across the wound’s jagged edge. 

“I think it needs tending to,” he whispers, jerking his hand away at Jiang Cheng’s obvious discomfort. “But I don’t think I have the right tools at my disposal.” 

Jiang Cheng shrugs. “It’ll be fine before the sun has fully risen above the mountain range,” he states bluntly. “I have _Swallow_ left to help with that.”

“Let me at least staunch the blood flow, then,” Jingyi says quietly, his voice sounding timid in the cold morning air. When he looks up, he finds Jiang Cheng staring right back at him, catching his gaze in thoughtful contemplation. His white hair spills in long tangles across his shoulders where it wrangled free off his ponytail, and his features are softened by the fire shine. Jingyi resists the urge to reach out and trace the familiar curve of the Witcher’s jaw, shuffles closer instead until the length of his thigh presses against Jiang Cheng’s. 

Eventually, Jiang Cheng nods, and Jingyi exhales a breath of sheer relief. He fusses with the clean cloth he found in his pack until it’s folded to his satisfaction, before he starts to lightly dab around the wound. Blood steeps the cotton instantly until all the white is varnished with red, and the air smells of copper. Belatedly, Jingyi notices the way his fingers shake as he holds the cloth against the Witcher’s ribs, and his smile is nervous when he looks up. 

“That’s a lot of blood,” he says because he’d rather talk than sit and panic in silence. “You gotta buy some extra ales tonight to make up for the loss. There’s an inn the next town over, been there before. The crowd was shit, but some of the rooms have a pretty sweet view into the valley. Maybe we should check it out, stay a while until—”

Jiang Cheng’s palm is warm when it falls onto the back of Jingyi’s hand, its weight stilling the tremor in his fingers. “What you did tonight, Jingyi, don’t ever do that again,” Jiang Cheng says quietly and his words are laced with sorrow. 

Jingyi nods. 

“If you had died tonight, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself knowing that you sacrificed yourself for me.” 

There’s a brief pause in which Jiang Cheng squeezes Jingyi hand softly, his eyes swimming in and out of focus with unacknowledged emotions. The sharp edges of his jerkin dig into Jingyi’s clothes when he leans in to tip their foreheads together and his voice fades to a whisper when he says. “I can’t stand the thought of losing you.” 

It’s a dangerous confession, and Jingyi knows what it cost Jiang Cheng to admit to such a thing. Jingyi is human, fragile, made of breakable bones and with no mutations to survive in the wilderness. He’s a liability in the eyes of many, a nuisance in those of most who come across their way, and a Witcher can’t afford to mingle with either. 

Jingyi sighs at the sensation of Jiang Cheng’s fingers lacing with his own against the blood-stained cloth. “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he says, and watches the pale morning light wash the gold out of Jiang Cheng’s eyes. “Besides, I haven't finished _The Ballad of the White Wolf_ yet, and I can’t go around playing _The Fishmonger’s Daughter_ up and down the country, now can I?” 

Jiang Cheng’s huffed laugh is a puff of warm breath against Jingyi’s cheek, and his stomach swoops at the sight of the Witcher’s lips curling into a rare smile. “Now, how about I find us something for breakfast? You stay put and keep applying pressure to that gross gash while I have a look around. I might even still have some of that spiced tea blend I purchased in Kaer Trolde.”

“Hm,” Jiang Cheng hums in agreement, and Jingyi can feel the Witcher watching him closely as he gets up on stiffened limbs. Jiang Cheng’s blood has turned sticky on his hand, and Jingyi hastily wipes it on his breeches before he sets his plan into motion. 

The morning is cold and frost nips at Jingyi’s cheeks as he checks on the horses, boils water, digs through his saddle bags until he finds bread and jerky. He promptly drops his findings next to a still Jiang Cheng, and he _knows_. Knows that Jiang Cheng is just indulging him. That his blood has long stopped welling up from beneath the torn skin and the mutated tissue is already starting to knit together. Soon the injury will fade into nothing but one of many scars, but for now Jingyi needs to take care of his Witcher, and Jiang Cheng lets him. 

They drink spiced tea from a wooden cup until their stomachs are warm with the taste of cloves and cinnamon leaf, and when the sun comes climbing across the mountain tops they get ready to leave the clearing behind. 

“About that inn,” Jingyi says as he’s clumsily hauling himself onto Asphodel’s back before grabbing the lute from its pouch, pulling it into his lap. 

Jiang Cheng grunts and is back to glowering chastisingly at Jingyi. “Lead the way,” he says, despite his evident disapproval, and steers Roach behind Jingyi’s dapple gray horse. “And no _Fishmonger_.”

The smile Jingyi cracks is wide and dazzling. “Try and stop me, Witcher,” he dares, and can’t help but yelp in amusement at the sour expression on Jiang Cheng’s face. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi-ya. ｡◕ ‿ ◕｡ 
> 
> thanks for reading. shout-out to [jess-jie](https://twitter.com/maccachino) as always for indulging my last minute requests and working your way steadily through my requests. 
> 
> thank you for [tori](https://twitter.com/1brncllweiying) for your unwavering encouragement. (▰˘◡˘▰)
> 
> 🍂please consider checking out all the other works collected in the harvestfest tag, and find us on twitter under the hashtag #chengyiharvest2020 for more creative content around the event.🍂
> 
> i'll leave you with the thought of witcher jiang cheng being littered in scars new and old, and jingyi tracing them tenderly on lazy mornings. *^*
> 
> also please do scream at me on my personal account [twitter](https://twitter.com/__suibian__) about anything you want!! ! !


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